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Ontario’s school boards are leading the way in breaking the province’s six-year freeze on executive salaries in the broader public sector that also includes colleges, universities and hospitals.
Most of the province’s school boards have asked the province to increase the total pay they can award executives by as much as five per cent a year, an analysis by this newspaper shows.
That’s the maximum annual increase the province has warned it will approve, according to several school board officials involved in the process.
However, there is no limit to how many years the annual increases can continue. That will vary among boards. It depends on how much their executives earn now and where boards want them to end up in the salary ranges set out in a compensation “framework” developed by the province’s 72 school boards.
The framework is complicated and has received little public attention. Two of Ottawa’s four school boards have completed public consultations. They posted their proposals for a five per cent a year increase for executives on their websites for 30 days and asked for comments. None was received.
The process school boards are going through gives a good indication of what to expect when the province’s colleges, universities and hospitals go public with wage proposals for their executives. Those may get more attention, though, as the salaries tend to be higher. The chief executive of The Ottawa Hospital, Jack Kitts, for instance, earned $630,485 in 2016, according to the province’s “sunshine list” of public-sector salaries, while then-president of Carleton University Roseann O’Reilly Runte earned $358,471 that year. In comparison, the director of Ottawa’s largest school board, Jennifer Adams, took home $224,778.
The compensation plans that will be unveiled in the coming weeks will end a pay freeze the province imposed in 2012 on executives in the broader public sector. There was a rough start to the pay thaw last spring, when the province’s colleges came up with a formula that could have led to raises for some college presidents of more than 50 per cent. That caused some outrage.
Deputy premier Deb Matthews quickly called the pay-hike proposals “unacceptable” and ordered colleges to go back to the drawing board.
The province also decided it would approve all pay-raise proposals before they are posted for public comments.
Ontario’s colleges, universities and most of the hospitals have submitted their executive compensation plans to the province. The deadline was late September. Three and a half months later, the province is still reviewing them. Some of the hospital plans should be posted for comment soon, said a spokesperson for the Treasury Board Secretariat.
But the 72 school boards are moving along. Sixty-four have posted their plans. Eighteen boards have completed public consultations and received provincial approval for maximum annual increases of five per cent to the total amount paid executives. (One board that got approval for 4.95 per cent).
This newspaper’s analysis of school boards across the province shows that the majority, including the four Ottawa boards, are seeking the five per cent annual increase.
It’s not surprising the proposed raises have gone virtually unnoticed by the public, said Todd White, chair of the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board. The information boards are required to post isn’t detailed enough for the public to understand what is being proposed, he said in an interview. As a result, the public consultations are “problematic and unclear.”
In the public documents, boards list the total amount now paid to executives and what annual percentage increase, if any, they are seeking. The plans, which follow the same template, also list salary ranges for executives.
That omits key information, said White, such as: What are the salaries earned by executives now, and how much does the board plan to increase them, over what time period? His board has posted that information, but as far as he knows it’s the only one in the province to do so, he said.
“These are public dollars. We are not shy to provide the numbers. What are we trying to hide?”
Some of those details were provided by Ottawa boards on request. At the French public school board, president Linda Savard said it plans to increase all executive salaries to the maximum allowed under the framework. That will take five years of five per cent annual increases to the total salary envelope, she said.
That’s fair, she said, considering salaries haven’t been raised since 2012.
The Ottawa Catholic School Board hasn’t decided how the five per cent increase it requested would be distributed among staff, said a spokesperson. However, “preliminary calculations” indicated the money will be required to “honour existing contracts and provide some economic increases.”
At the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, the proposal is to set salaries for the director and superintendents in the mid to high end of the ranges in the framework, said a spokesperson, who was unable to immediately say how many years of five per cent increases it would take to bring staff up to that level.
The board says its executives are underpaid, creating an “unacceptable business risk in terms of recruitment and retention of members of the senior leadership team,” according to the compensation plan. The board reached that conclusion after consulting the salary ranges in the framework and conducting an independent study of executive salaries in Ottawa post-secondary institutions, the federal public service, the municipality, major social service agencies and area school boards.
The salary of director of education Adams, for example, trails comparable executive positions by 40 per cent, according to the board’s calculations.
The board’s associate director, meanwhile, was paid $169,326 in 2016, the latest year for which figures are available from the sunshine list. That is $40,000 below the minimum salary range in the framework.
The province’s school boards hired a consultant to help them design the framework. The goal was to create a standard system to help boards figure out what to pay executives, said Linda French, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, one of the groups on a steering committee that worked with the consultant to develop the framework.
Because executive salaries have been negotiated locally, they vary wildly across the province and from board to board, she said.
Fair pay is vital to attract talented leadership, said boards in their compensation plans. They argue that it’s increasingly difficult to recruit executives. One problem is that principals continued to receive salary increases during the executive pay freeze, bringing their pay closer to the salaries of superintendents, who are executives. That makes it more difficult to recruit people willing to move up into a superintendent position, with extra responsibilities for not much of a pay raise.
In remote and rural areas, it can be difficult to recruit top staff. At the tiny Northwest Catholic District School Board, for instance, which runs six schools in northern Ontario, superintendents are paid $135,765. That’s less than principals make at other boards, said the board’s compensation plan.
The framework groups boards into seven levels, depending on their size and complexity. Salary ranges were set for executives within each level. The ranges are broad, allowing boards to decide where to place their executives, taking into account such things as their experience and credentials.
In White’s opinion, the salary ranges are too large, and will simply create an incentive for boards to migrate toward the maximum rates.
Funding increases approved by the province are to the total “envelope” of executive compensation. It’s up to the boards to decide how to distribute the extra money among executives.
However, boards cannot raise any individual executive salary above the maximum in the range set out in the framework. And if an executive is already earning more than the maximum? That person can be “red circled,” which means the salary will not increase, or face a salary reduction to get within the range within three years, said Rusty Hick, executive director of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association.
Who might get a raise?
All the executives in Ontario’s “broader public sector” could potentially be in line for a raise as the province ends its six-year freeze on their salaries.
Employers produce executive compensation plans that compare the salaries of their executives with those in similar organizations. Based on that information, employers can ask the province for an increase in funding for executives.
The organizations that fall under the broader public sector include colleges, universities, hospitals, local health integration networks, and school boards. But more than 40 other organizations are also included in the sector, including: Alcohol and Gaming Commission, Legal Aid Ontario, TVO and TFO, Ontario Power Generation, Liquor Control Board of Ontario, Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission, Ontario Securities Commission, Cancer Care Ontario, Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, Ontario Arts Council, Royal Ontario Museum, and Ornge.
What’s happening with Ottawa’s school boards?
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board: Public comments closed Jan. 13. Trustees have scheduled a 15-minute board meeting on Jan. 16 to discuss the public consultation. It starts at 6:45 p.m. at the board office at 133 Greenbank Rd.
The Ottawa Catholic School Board and the Ottawa French public school board: Public consultations have ended, and both boards are waiting for final approval from the province.
The Ottawa French Catholic school board: It posted a plan on Jan. 13, and will accept public comments online until Feb. 11.
jmiller@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JacquieAMiller
查看原文...
Most of the province’s school boards have asked the province to increase the total pay they can award executives by as much as five per cent a year, an analysis by this newspaper shows.
That’s the maximum annual increase the province has warned it will approve, according to several school board officials involved in the process.
However, there is no limit to how many years the annual increases can continue. That will vary among boards. It depends on how much their executives earn now and where boards want them to end up in the salary ranges set out in a compensation “framework” developed by the province’s 72 school boards.
The framework is complicated and has received little public attention. Two of Ottawa’s four school boards have completed public consultations. They posted their proposals for a five per cent a year increase for executives on their websites for 30 days and asked for comments. None was received.
The process school boards are going through gives a good indication of what to expect when the province’s colleges, universities and hospitals go public with wage proposals for their executives. Those may get more attention, though, as the salaries tend to be higher. The chief executive of The Ottawa Hospital, Jack Kitts, for instance, earned $630,485 in 2016, according to the province’s “sunshine list” of public-sector salaries, while then-president of Carleton University Roseann O’Reilly Runte earned $358,471 that year. In comparison, the director of Ottawa’s largest school board, Jennifer Adams, took home $224,778.
The compensation plans that will be unveiled in the coming weeks will end a pay freeze the province imposed in 2012 on executives in the broader public sector. There was a rough start to the pay thaw last spring, when the province’s colleges came up with a formula that could have led to raises for some college presidents of more than 50 per cent. That caused some outrage.
Deputy premier Deb Matthews quickly called the pay-hike proposals “unacceptable” and ordered colleges to go back to the drawing board.
The province also decided it would approve all pay-raise proposals before they are posted for public comments.
Ontario’s colleges, universities and most of the hospitals have submitted their executive compensation plans to the province. The deadline was late September. Three and a half months later, the province is still reviewing them. Some of the hospital plans should be posted for comment soon, said a spokesperson for the Treasury Board Secretariat.
But the 72 school boards are moving along. Sixty-four have posted their plans. Eighteen boards have completed public consultations and received provincial approval for maximum annual increases of five per cent to the total amount paid executives. (One board that got approval for 4.95 per cent).
This newspaper’s analysis of school boards across the province shows that the majority, including the four Ottawa boards, are seeking the five per cent annual increase.
It’s not surprising the proposed raises have gone virtually unnoticed by the public, said Todd White, chair of the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board. The information boards are required to post isn’t detailed enough for the public to understand what is being proposed, he said in an interview. As a result, the public consultations are “problematic and unclear.”
In the public documents, boards list the total amount now paid to executives and what annual percentage increase, if any, they are seeking. The plans, which follow the same template, also list salary ranges for executives.
That omits key information, said White, such as: What are the salaries earned by executives now, and how much does the board plan to increase them, over what time period? His board has posted that information, but as far as he knows it’s the only one in the province to do so, he said.
“These are public dollars. We are not shy to provide the numbers. What are we trying to hide?”
Some of those details were provided by Ottawa boards on request. At the French public school board, president Linda Savard said it plans to increase all executive salaries to the maximum allowed under the framework. That will take five years of five per cent annual increases to the total salary envelope, she said.
That’s fair, she said, considering salaries haven’t been raised since 2012.
The Ottawa Catholic School Board hasn’t decided how the five per cent increase it requested would be distributed among staff, said a spokesperson. However, “preliminary calculations” indicated the money will be required to “honour existing contracts and provide some economic increases.”
At the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, the proposal is to set salaries for the director and superintendents in the mid to high end of the ranges in the framework, said a spokesperson, who was unable to immediately say how many years of five per cent increases it would take to bring staff up to that level.
The board says its executives are underpaid, creating an “unacceptable business risk in terms of recruitment and retention of members of the senior leadership team,” according to the compensation plan. The board reached that conclusion after consulting the salary ranges in the framework and conducting an independent study of executive salaries in Ottawa post-secondary institutions, the federal public service, the municipality, major social service agencies and area school boards.
The salary of director of education Adams, for example, trails comparable executive positions by 40 per cent, according to the board’s calculations.
The board’s associate director, meanwhile, was paid $169,326 in 2016, the latest year for which figures are available from the sunshine list. That is $40,000 below the minimum salary range in the framework.
The province’s school boards hired a consultant to help them design the framework. The goal was to create a standard system to help boards figure out what to pay executives, said Linda French, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, one of the groups on a steering committee that worked with the consultant to develop the framework.
Because executive salaries have been negotiated locally, they vary wildly across the province and from board to board, she said.
Fair pay is vital to attract talented leadership, said boards in their compensation plans. They argue that it’s increasingly difficult to recruit executives. One problem is that principals continued to receive salary increases during the executive pay freeze, bringing their pay closer to the salaries of superintendents, who are executives. That makes it more difficult to recruit people willing to move up into a superintendent position, with extra responsibilities for not much of a pay raise.
In remote and rural areas, it can be difficult to recruit top staff. At the tiny Northwest Catholic District School Board, for instance, which runs six schools in northern Ontario, superintendents are paid $135,765. That’s less than principals make at other boards, said the board’s compensation plan.
The framework groups boards into seven levels, depending on their size and complexity. Salary ranges were set for executives within each level. The ranges are broad, allowing boards to decide where to place their executives, taking into account such things as their experience and credentials.
In White’s opinion, the salary ranges are too large, and will simply create an incentive for boards to migrate toward the maximum rates.
Funding increases approved by the province are to the total “envelope” of executive compensation. It’s up to the boards to decide how to distribute the extra money among executives.
However, boards cannot raise any individual executive salary above the maximum in the range set out in the framework. And if an executive is already earning more than the maximum? That person can be “red circled,” which means the salary will not increase, or face a salary reduction to get within the range within three years, said Rusty Hick, executive director of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association.
Who might get a raise?
All the executives in Ontario’s “broader public sector” could potentially be in line for a raise as the province ends its six-year freeze on their salaries.
Employers produce executive compensation plans that compare the salaries of their executives with those in similar organizations. Based on that information, employers can ask the province for an increase in funding for executives.
The organizations that fall under the broader public sector include colleges, universities, hospitals, local health integration networks, and school boards. But more than 40 other organizations are also included in the sector, including: Alcohol and Gaming Commission, Legal Aid Ontario, TVO and TFO, Ontario Power Generation, Liquor Control Board of Ontario, Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission, Ontario Securities Commission, Cancer Care Ontario, Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, Ontario Arts Council, Royal Ontario Museum, and Ornge.
What’s happening with Ottawa’s school boards?
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board: Public comments closed Jan. 13. Trustees have scheduled a 15-minute board meeting on Jan. 16 to discuss the public consultation. It starts at 6:45 p.m. at the board office at 133 Greenbank Rd.
The Ottawa Catholic School Board and the Ottawa French public school board: Public consultations have ended, and both boards are waiting for final approval from the province.
The Ottawa French Catholic school board: It posted a plan on Jan. 13, and will accept public comments online until Feb. 11.
jmiller@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JacquieAMiller
查看原文...
